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A massive winter storm moving across the United States will not keep the U.S. Congress from meeting on Monday to formally certify Republican Donald Trump's election as president, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday. "The Electoral Count Act requires this on January 6 at 1 p.m. - so, whether we’re in a blizzard or not we’re going to be in that chamber making sure this is done," Johnson told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" in an interview. (Chiacu, 1/5)

Congress tightened the rules for the certification after the violence of 2021 and Trump’s attempts to usurp the process. In particular, the revised Electoral Count Act passed in 2022 more explicitly defines the role of the vice president. The updated law clarifies that the vice president does not have the power to determine the results on Jan. 6. (Jalonick, 1/4)

For Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and other victims of that day's violence, Donald Trump's electoral victory was a gut punch. "It feels sometimes, like, what did I risk my life for?" Gonell told NPR. Gonell says his injuries from Jan. 6 were so severe that he needed to undergo two surgeries, and ultimately had to retire from the Capitol Police. He's watched as Republican lawmakers, some of whom he defended from the rioters, have downplayed the severity of the violence. (Dreisbach, 1/5)

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday he expects to pass President-elect Trump’s agenda through one big reconciliation package before Memorial Day. In an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Johnson reiterated that Republicans will try to pack in as many policy items as possible into a large reconciliation bill, which would avoid the 60-vote threshold necessary to pass most legislation in the Senate. Reconciliation legislation requires a simple majority, or 50 votes, in the upper chamber. Johnson said there are some “low-hanging fruit” bills, including those that would address the border, that he will put on the floor right away for a vote. But immigration and deportation policies will also be included in the reconciliation package, Johnson said, as will tax cuts and energy permitting reform. Johnson said Trump also asked that the debt ceiling be dealt with before June. (Fortinsky, 1/5)

As happens every two years, 2025 brings a fresh start. All the legislation drafted and debated in 2023 and 2024 has ceased to exist. Lawmakers will have to start negotiations again on issues affecting Medicare, Medicaid, providers, health insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and more. The shift from a divided Congress to a legislature entirely in the GOP's hands is the biggest and most obvious change. (McAuliff, 1/3)

For the first time since 2011, the number of women serving in the Senate and House of Representatives will decline. Kelly Dittmar, director of research at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, said that while the drop in the number of women in Congress is small, “any decline when we’re talking about women’s representation is effectively slowed or stalled progress because women are already so underrepresented in Congress.” ... Jessica Mackler, the president of EMILYs List, a group that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, said the organization backed all 19 of the new Democratic women joining Congress. (Becker, 1/3)